The Trick Of Treating Your Players With Atmosphere

By John Wommer

Hi gamers! I promised "Duplicate in Triplicate", and it'll be here soon, but as treat for Halloween I'd thought I'd drop in this quick "mini" GM Perspective on special events and atmosphere. Enjoy!

One of the things that I have done throughout my years of gaming has been to make real world special occasions such as holidays into a reason to have "special event" sessions of a game - usually a one shot session in a different system then the main campaign, or a side adventure that doesn't change the main campaign in any significant way, but still allows the players to use their characters in a different way which marks the occasion in their minds.

For this special Halloween column, I'll give an example of using this particular holiday as a basis for one of these special sessions. As we go, I'll try to point out the things that I did to make the game memorable beyond simply the timing of the event, such as the atmosphere I tried to create both inside and outside the game.

The Ghoul in the Machine - I was running a DnD campaign, and we needed a break. Halloween was close, and so I ran a one shot adventure using the GURPS system. I didn't tell the players the genre of the game, simply that it was modern day, with some special abilities allowed, they would be part of a special government agency, and the points they could spend.

Behind the scenes, I had decided on the few points I felt necessary to play the adventure out. The players would be part of a specialized government agency made to deal with supernatural events. They would encounter a sentient computer life form (actually a demon summoned into a program by a satanic software developer) which would lead them to a small rural Ohio town. There, they would discover that the townsfolk had been taken over by the AI Demon, and that the mainframe containing the demon's life form was in a software development firm just outside town. I created the stats for some misc NPCs, and the Demon. The rest I left to the play of the game.

Once the players made their characters, I had a varied collection - most importantly, a girl with "machine ESP" - the ability to deal with machines and programs on a near-telepathic level. This character was the key to placing leads, and guiding the group as they went. With her was a former military/federal officer, a hacker with a gift for numbers, and a wiccan with a soft assortment of spells. We were ready to play.

On the evening of the game, I set the play area to create a feel of "disturbing" - I made sure that the curtains to the room were drawn; used dim, indirect lighting; set the thermostat so the room was slightly chilled; and had low, soft, instrumental music playing in the background. Our usual game area was well lit and roomy, the room for this game was cramped, dim, and cold. Even as we started my players joked about the atmosphere, but as we proceeded the jokes died out as the players became engrossed in the game.

I presented the game in soft spoken tones - playing out in unusual detail the NPCs - speaking all parts, describing intricate details of surroundings, never raising my own voice unless the NPC had need to. The party followed the clues I laid out and were doing well when they arrived at the town.

In town, I really played up the otherworldly atmosphere that surrounded the characters. NPCs displaying a lack of emotion, or inappropriate behavior, small physical clues that led to much conjecture but few real clues. Dogs (mastiffs, to be exact) that followed the players, but at the edges of their vision - disappearing when directly sought. The tension on the game room was increasing, when the characters met in a motel room to compare notes and regroup.

It started with the TV. The set came on, blaring a I Love Lucy episode, then winking out. Each time the characters tried to put forth a theory, the TV would crash in, until one of the characters pulled the chord out of the wall, tearing the chord in the process. The TV sat silent. I allowed the players a few minutes of character interaction, when the phone in their room began to ring. The line was dead when they answered. Within a few such calls, the phone was yanked from the wall - the tension was building.

Next the characters heard scratching at the door, and the sound of an animal's snuffling sniff beneath the door. When they approached, trying to listen at the door to gauge the threat of these sounds, the phone rang again - while unplugged from the wall! A character picked up the receiver, and put it to their ear, where they heard a soft chant of many voices repeating one word "Cain. Cain. Cain". The phone was hung up, but continued to ring off and on. The TV started, showing static while the chant began form it's speakers as well. "Cain. Cain. Cain. Cain."

The players, by now were thoroughly engrossed, as tense as their characters would be, if not a little more. I was softly chanting the voices form the phone and TV when I quickly jumped up from my chair, pointed to the real, curtain draped, window of the room and screamed "What the hell is that??!!". Two of my players shrieked. One, who was seated across from me and had her back to the window, literally tipped over in her chair and fell on her back as she screamed. One fella was ducking under the table when he realized what he was doing. I looked at them all, big grin on my face, and said "atmosphere, hunh?". We all laughed, very hard, for a long time.

The thing I pointed to was, for the characters, a group of townspeople who were chanting outside their motel window, but seemed to melt into the night before the characters could get a good look. All the weird happenings ended, and the characters tried to rest for the remainder of the evening. The next day, I allowed the characters to gain their first real clue, and off they went to the development corporation, and the finale of the game.

By now, the atmosphere had changed back into a "normal" game, which was good - the characters were in daylight, had a clue what they were doing, and so things for them would have been normalized as well.

In the end, the players discovered that a satan worshipping wannabe had written in code to a popular video game that repeated cycles from the Necronomicon that summoned s demon- into the software. This demon, a hybrid of technology and magic, was using mind control to lure people into it's established bases of operations, then implanting chips to control their thoughts and actions. It was this being - calling itself Cain after the biblical first murderer - that had controlled the townspeople, the demon dogs which had confronted the characters entry to the company headquarters, and was "alive" in the video arcades throughout the country. While I left myself open for a sequel, I never did do a follow up - I had moved to another place, and it never seemed right again.

In running a session such as this, be prepared for a little resistance at first. - especially if your style of play doesn't usually incorporate mood music, lighting, or similar real world contrivances. My players scoffed at fist, but since I made no attempt to change or justify the surroundings, they were accepted, and became another tool for me to set the feeling.

Also remember that this is a special event - as such, some normal rules of conduct or play may be changed. I normally find it difficult to speak in a different voice for every NPC ( I go hoarse changing back and forth), but went to great pains to do so this time, and to encourage the players to speak only in character. This helped when I needed to create a mood or set up a trigger such as the screamed line that brought the pent up tension to a head.

Most of all, be ready to make this session fun - with no long lasting effects to the campaign or group, it is a wonderful time to cut lose and have some fun. Mistakes will be forgiven, overacting a part of the experience, and - hopefully - the game will become a cherished memory.

Coming soon is "Duplicate in Triplicate", and as we near Christmas I'll do another of these mini GMPs on the two holiday themed sessions I ran - one based on the Nutcracker, and another I call The Ghostbusters vs. Christmas.

Have Fun!
-John